Spatial Informatics

Company & Agency Internships

Graduate students in the MS Information Systems and MS Spatial Information Science and Engineering degree programs who have completed nine credits of required core courses qualify to enroll in SIE 590 Information Systems Internship. Students acquire practical training using knowledge acquired in their graduate program while gaining course credits working with a Maine business or organization. Hosting organizations supervise and work closely with outstanding prospects for potential long-term employment. A description of the internship course and the expectations for both the student and the supervising organization are listed under the Sample Syllabus for the course. The attachments to the Sample Syllabus show the work plan and reporting requirements for the student. Most internships are likely to involve compensation for the student but this is not a requirement.

Participating Hosting Organizations

Participating organizations with needs for high level information system skills and who are seeking to review and consider internship applications from qualifying graduate students include the following:

Internships may occur during the regular school year or during the summer months. A match must be found between the interests and needs of the host and the interests and specific expertise of the intern. This match making is best accomplished through completiion of the required forms initiated by the student. Timing may be a major consideration since some of the listed organizations may have windows of opportunity but not continuous opportunities to work with graduate students.

Hosting Organization Profiles & Graduate Internship Interests

The City of Portland is Maine’s business, financial and retail capital and the largest city in the state. Seascapes and cityscapes blend harmoniously in Portland, perched on a peninsula, jutting out into island-studded Casco Bay. The metropolitan hub of Maine’s south coast region, Portland is a progressive, lively city incorporating the character of yesteryear into a modern urban environment. Historic architecture blends gracefully with the new as you stroll along her working waterfront or the cobblestone streets of the restored Old Port section of the city.

With a metro population of 230,000, the Greater Portland area is home to almost one quarter of Maine’s total population. The population of the city is 64,000. The economy is strong. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and gridlock are unheard of. Portland is an easygoing city with friendly, hardworking people. Ranked nationally as one of the ten safest, culturally most fascinating US Cities and one of the top cities for doing business, housing is affordable, the schools and healthcare are outstanding.

An internship would involve working with Portland’s GIS Manager as an important member of the IT team. We have spent the last 16 years creating an outstanding geo-base. Information sharing is supported by ESRI SDE and ARCIMS servers. Portland has the most technically advanced public safety mapping system in use in the State of Maine. We serve the City of Portland, City of South Portland and the Town of Cape Elizabeth with real time information concerning Police, Fire and EMS calls combined with the real time locations for the combined public safety fleet. Our biggest initiative for the coming year will be the development of spatial tools and processes similar to those used by Los Angeles PD and Chicago PD and involve working with Portland’s Crime Analyst and the Portland PD command staff.

DeLorme is a leading provider of mapping products, technologies, and data for the consumer and professional markets. Located in Yarmouth, Maine, DeLorme headquarters is home to corporate offices, a state-of-the-art research and development facility, the DeLorme Map Store, and Eartha, the world’s largest rotating and revolving globe. Since its incorporation in 1976, DeLorme has developed an unprecedented reputation as a leader in the mapping industry. From humble beginnings as a paper atlas publisher, the company quickly emerged as a pioneering technological innovator. DeLorme not only embraced new technologies, it developed them.

DeLorme Mapmakers and Map-Making Expertise: DeLorme offers a unique set of core competencies across the complex areas of map data creation and management, software development, and integration within GPS technologies. This ability to understand and develop all the critical components necessary to compete in the fast-changing world of GPS and digital mapping provides DeLorme with a unique competitive advantage.

An Innovation Leader in GPS: Beginning In the mid-1990s, before GPS usage was widespread, DeLorme was pioneering GPS solutions for laptop PCs and, subsequently, for Palm OS and Pocket PC devices. DeLorme continues to lead with the Earthmate LT-40 for USB laptops, and the BT-20 for Bluetooth-enabled PDAs and touchscreen smartphones (Palm and WinCE).

In 2007, the company introduced the Earthmate PN-20, its first handheld GPS receiver. It was followed in 2008 by the high-performance PN-40 which, by virtue of its performance and capabilities, has vaulted DeLorme into the forefront of handheld GPS providers.

Since its creation in 1982, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems (EMHS) has evolved into a remarkable resource for central, eastern, and northern Maine. Our heritage is based on a rich tradition of determination, collaboration, and flexibility in meeting the changing and growing needs of our communities. Through its members – from Waterville to Madawaska and Blue Hill to Greenville – EMHS advocates on behalf of our communities with an integrated, tireless, and passionate voice. Member hospitals and other organizations share common values and work to ensure only the highest quality care is available to all.

EMHS serves as a foundation for more than 30 member organizations, of which the seven hospitals are most prominent: The Acadia Hospital, The Aroostook Medical Center, Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, Charles A Dean, Eastern Maine Medical Center, Inland Hospital, and Sebasticook Valley Hospital. Acadia is a free-standing psychiatric hospital and the only one of its kind to receive magnet status for excellence in nursing. Eastern Maine Medical Center is the largest of the hospitals, offering tertiary level services and representing more than 3000 of the nearly 8000 people who together are EMHS employees.

Other EMHS members include Affiliated Healthcare Systems, RossCare, Eastern Maine HomeCare, and Healthcare Charities. The system oversees numerous long-term care facilities and home care organizations, as well as emergency transportation services – including an LLC for LifeFlight of Maine, the state’s only medical helicopter.

Unlike many of the member organizations that are part of it, EMHS does not deliver direct patient care services. Known as the “home office,” EMHS provides critical non-patient care business services that can be cost effectively shared across all organization in the system. These services include, accounting, information technology, planning, compliance, legal services, and web development. The staff of the EMHS home office, based in the Brewer Professional Center, are often the facilitators for bringing together system wide professionals who are seeking the standardization for best practices proving that as a system, “Together We’re Stronger.”

Working for ESRI means being a part of changing our world. ESRI is the world leader in geographic information system (GIS) software development, a critical technology that enables organizations across the globe to more effectively carry out their missions, improve the bottom line, and make a positive contribution to society. ESRI spans the globe with 10 U.S. regional offices, 80 international distributors, and customers in more than 150 countries. We employ 2,700 people in the U.S. including 1,900 at our Redlands headquarters, a community ideally located in Southern California.

ESRI’s ArcGIS is an integrated collection of GIS software products that provides a standards-based platform for spatial analysis, data management, and mapping. ArcGIS products can be used throughout the enterprise on the desktop and via servers and mobile devices. People are using ArcGIS in all types of organizations to improve their workflows and solve their most challenging issues.

An internship with ESRI is an opportunity to gain valuable work experience while students continue their education or prepare for life after graduation. Interns gain personal and professional skills that will give them an edge in the workplace after graduation. Internships are paid positions and flexible in scheduling, but are offered primarily in the summer time.

In addition to internships at our corporate headquarters, we are offering one position in our Portland, Maine, satellite office to work alongside experienced product engineers. This is a great opportunity to learn about software functionality and how to perform quality assurance testing and build QA testing frameworks. We are seeking applicants with general GIS knowledge, ArcGIS Server knowledge, some .NET and Silverlight programming background, and/or QA experience.

Global Relief Technologies (GRT) was founded in 2003 to help organizations in remote or disconnected environments report critical information in real time.

This means relief workers in Africa can collect and instantly transmit crucial health data from a remote village for immediate analysis and help stem an outbreak of disease. It means that US emergency responders working in areas devastated by a hurricane or earthquake can quickly assess the situation on the ground so resources are allocated properly. It means that global companies operating in remote and difficult environments can collect and report business-critical data in real time. It means that real-time reporting and data analysis is possible no matter where you are located on the globe.

At GRT, we combine our years of practical field experience with our technical expertise in GIS mapping, satellite imagery, and satellite communications to deliver a fully integrated end-to-end data collection and analysis solution. That’s why organizations including the American Red Cross, the International Medical Corps, and the U. S. Marine Corps can count on GRT for the real-time data collection and analysis they need to make informed decisions.

GRT has a long history of employing interns from the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire – at the BS, MS and Ph.D. candidate levels. Internships range from one semester to several years. And in some cases the internship is tightly connected with the Student’s thesis work. Many interns have been hired as full time employees upon graduation.

Sewall provides integrated geospatial, engineering, and forestry consulting services to clients in government and industry. Our diverse portfolio is based on 100 years’ experience in surveying, forestry consulting, and civil engineering; 60 years’ in aerial mapping; and 20 years’ in geospatial systems and software. In the last 10 years, our offerings have expanded to include environmental engineering, renewable energy, and web-based technologies.

Sewall is organized to share resources and technologies across company areas for the delivery of higher-value customer solutions. Few companies in our markets have both the breadth of services and the structure to combine them in ways that meet specific client needs. Our ability to coordinate and collaborate in the service of these needs is an advantage to us and to our clients, who return to Sewall again and again. Over 65 percent of Sewall clients are repeat customers.

A client-focused firm, Sewall is committed to understanding client needs and business drivers and the needs of client constituencies. Our core services in engineering, geospatial information, and natural resources can be integrated in any combination to further client success: